A Reuters editor issued a retraction and lengthy apology for “jumping to conclusions” in the aftermath of Thursday’s mass shooting at a Maryland newspaper office.

Though police have since said they believe the suspected gunman appeared to specifically target the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, the social media speculation began long before details were available.

For Reuters Breakingviews Editor Rob Cox, the tragedy led him to recall President Donald Trump’s frequently combative rhetoric aimed at the news media, as Red State reported.

In a tweet he soon deleted and denounced, he wrote that the shooting is “what happens when @realDonaldTrump calls journalists the enemy of the people.”

3 – My experience as a member of the community of Newtown, Connecticut in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook tragedy, combined with the possibility that my colleagues in the press were being targeted, pushed me into a state of emotional distress.

4 – I am sorry for my comments, which I quickly deleted and have disavowed, and especially remorseful if they did anything to distract from the thoughts and love we must send to the community of Annapolis.

“When I saw the news today that a mass shooter had targeted the employees of a newspaper in Maryland I responded emotionally and inappropriately,” Cox wrote.

Describing his initial reaction as “entirely personal,” he acknowledged that it did not comply with “the Reuters Trust Principles and (his) own standards for letting facts, not snap judgments, guide (his) understanding.”

Do you think this Reuters writer crossed the line?

Cox cited his own experience as a community member impacted by a mass shooting as a possible influence in his visceral remarks.

“My experience as a member of the community of Newtown, Connecticut in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook tragedy, combined with the possibility that my colleagues in the press were being targeted, pushed me into a state of emotional distress,” he wrote.

He concluded with an apology for the initial tweet, which he said he “quickly deleted and … disavowed,” adding that he was “especially remorseful” if his comments “did anything to distract from the thoughts and love we must send to the community of Annapolis.”

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